Atomic bomb re-enactment dropped from Dayton air show

DAYTON, Ohio -- The popular Dayton Air Show has canceled a re-enactment of a World War II atomic bomb attack on Japan after an online petition was posted in protest.

Air show executive director Terry Grevious says the June 22-23 airshow at Dayton International Airport will keep a planned pyrotechnic show but not as an event meant to re-enact the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima.

The Dayton Daily News reports that Dayton art curator Gabriela Pickett started the online petition to object to the "glamorization of destruction."

Grevious said the re-enactment was meant to mark an historic occurrence credited with ending the war and saving many lives that would have been lost had it continued.

The air show has done pyrotechnic explosions but has never labeled it an atomic bomb display.